OSNews

Hi,

Yes, these uneducated people still need to be educated. Sadly, some of them are teachers - I've even seen university professors use "Gb" when they meant "GiB".



Let's try this. If you've got a 2 MB disk and you're downloading data at a rate of 8 KB per second; how long until you run out of space to store received data?

Possible answers include:
a) 2*1024*1024/(8*1024) = 256 seconds
b) 2*1000*1024/(8*1024) = 250 seconds
c) 2*1000*1000/(8*1024) = 244.14 seconds
d) 2*1024*1024/(8*1000) = 262.144 seconds
e) 2*1000*1024/(8*1000) = 256 seconds
f) 2*1000*1000/(8*1000) = 250 seconds

Note: Networking hardware typically uses "K = 1000" and hard drive manufacturers have a nasty habit of using "M = 1000*1024", so (e) is potentially the most likely answer, unless the disk is SSD or USB flash where (a) might be more likely, or the prefixes comply with international standards and (f) is the only right answer.




No. The use of "K = 1024" was always wrong and never complied with any standard (despite common usage). The common usage of "wrong" is likely to have been caused by laziness/convenience (e.g. it's easier to say "1 KB of RAM" and be wrong, and harder to say "1.024 KB of RAM" and be right).

The only thing the standards bodies did was create a more convenient alternative that is right (e.g. it's easy to "1 KiB of RAM" and be right and harder to say "1.024 KB of RAM" and be right).

But yes, some people aren't educated and prefer to remain wrong.

- Brendan